What we have focused in our original post is high tier, where there are no airspawns (well either everyone gets them or no one does). For low tiers I would also remove airspawns for stirke aircraft/attackers. Strike aircraft and attackers that can function well as fighters have no reason to have an airspawn, and this does lead to abuse.
The problem lies in that if these ground pounders (that are actually ground pounding) want to ground pound they can’t do it with fighters flying around them. So Gaijin gave them airspawns so that they can reach their targets before they get intercepted.
I would make it so that such aircraft go after their fighter teammates and can go in for their targets only after their leading fighters have achieved air superiority in front of them.
I made a quick mockup. Thick lines in the backs are airfields, crosses are bomb/strike targets, arrows are fighters and crossed arrows are strike aircraft.
Here’s how team distribution would look like before any merges. Let’s focus on the left third of the battle field.
If our fighters lose strike aircraft can divert and support a nearby group. In our mode taking out all targets would require multiple flyouts anyway, since we imagine we would have respawns.
Here’s how that could look like. Notice that the blue arrow on the left is gone, indicating that blue fighters lost.
We are playing planes that were designed for war.
We need BIG maps, big enough to the point that you need to fly high to avoid running out of fuel.
We need proper objectives. Preferably a front line, with ground targets, long range SAMS, SEAD and multiple bases. Moving front line,
We need longer games, 20 min is not REALISTIC. NOT EVEN ENOUGH TIME TO CLIMB.
We need AWACS
This has all been done in DCS years ago. Just copy it and make a light version. We don’t need to air refuel and fly for hours, but it’s a bit ridiculous right now.
Devs I beg you, make it REALISTIC so the name fits.
imagine using helis to ressuply SAMS on the front
imagine using strike aircraft to hunt the enemies SAMS,
imagine using SAMS and SPAA on an actual front to protect AI from strike aircraft
imagine playing a tank in an actual platoon
imagine flying CAP wiht a fighter and doing BVR
imagine flying helis at treetop to get behind enemy lines to hunt logistics
imagine playing an AWACS
the possibilities are endless and the potential is infinite. But here we spawning 50km from each other and fur balling like brain dead bots for 5 min praying to god that you get a kill before the furball consumes you
Yes, current EC maps and missions suck. It’s the same as normal mid sized maps for the most part. It might be slightly better because teams can spread out more, and bombers can go and bomb in peace, but it is more of the same.
Great idea, haven’t thought of that one. Could be limited to utility helicopters so that attack helis don’t steal that objective since they are faster. Not like these is much room in attack helis for cargo anyway.
Objectives in games exist for one reason: To force players to encounter other players, and have a fight. That’s it.
Whether this is AI units or bomb bases in Air RB, or cap circles in Ground, or caps/convoys in Naval, it’s all the same. A light with which to attract the moths that are players. This is the core of all PvP game design. Domination or Hardpoint in CoD, Capture the Flag or Oddball in Halo, or any other example, it’s all the same thing.
I enjoy flying all aircraft types, but any time I see a suggestion that boils down to “I want to PvE without being interrupted”, it’s something that can simply be tossed out. Because that’s contrary to the core design intent of a PvP game.
People who don’t play top tier ARB are welcome to keep their opinions to themselves. Top tier ARB is what this thread is about, as we stated in the first sentence of our post. You have no point of reference, and by commenting how our solutions are “needless” is very ignorant, as you haven’t even experienced the problems yourself.
That wasn’t meant for you. I was frustrated with that other person calling our ideas and effort “needless”. I didn’t spend hours on this for someone who barely plays the gamemode to call my efforts needless or worthless.
While you may not play top tier you gave us your view of similar problems at lower tiers, as well as some specific ones.
@BleedingUranium I don’t think you were speaking with malice, but rather it was your lack of experience with ARB in general. I still think it’s quite rude to call someone’s ideas and suggestions “needless” when you don’t even understand why we are suggesting them.
I play Warthunder to play a fighter jet. I have no interest in fighting AI that are at the same place every time. I have no interest in killing an attacker that is a free kill beelining for AI. I have no interest in playing a game that offers me points simply because I chose a loadout and someone else decided to be a burden on the opposite team. I want to play my plane to its strength against someone who can give me a challenge.
PvE and PvP should be entirely separated in warthunder. I play a PvP game to do PvP. Some players wants to do PvE. Fine with me, but we shouldn’t be in the same match. The fundamental problem is that some people enjoy an extremely passive playstyle of “going straight to press spacebar over an immobile, undefended ground target”, while the majority of players want to use their warmachine to lodge a missile up the other’s engine.
One option that is viable, is EC. It gives long term objective on the map so air supremacy is as important as killing targets, and those target range from AI planes to ground target, to achieving air supremacy over a cadran of the map.
I fundamentally disagree with any gameplay change that would force the players into chasing attackers as the priority target. It’s incredibly boring for everyone involved. I’m an Old Guard by WT standard, I remember the B-17 chase over Berlin back in the day. Half the german team HAD to spawn in Me410 B6/R3 and beeline the enemy bombers or else the B-17 would instantly finish the match. It was boring, tedious, absolutely infuriating and forced one side to play one specific aircraft in an entire BR bracket to have a chance to win.
Because of the nature of the stock grind and the status quo, some PVE elements are bound to be combined with PVP no matter the mode.
The goal would be to make PVE meaningful. Others have mentioned this but War Thunder certainly does need to work on their AI for meaningful PVE content.
Some form of EC is probably the best solution to all of this and would allow a ton of the more modern jets to actually play their roles out properly.
Unfortunately all of War Thunder is designed around the grind and this grinding nature drastically hurts game play. Many people just play to feed an addiction so any mode that nerfs the grind, even in a small way, will be met with a lot of hate.
I really hope we get an EC mode soon for the upper tiers.
Big maps (so people can avoid PvP), no markers (so people can avoid PvP), AI/objectives carrying more weight, additional PvE objectives… yes, that’s exactly what this suggestion is. Just like every other EC-like concept that periodically floats around.
Air RB has also been my main mode for most of my many years in WT, only coming in second to Naval RB recently. I normally ignore petty and irrelevant statshaming, but misinformation is not acceptable.
I do like the idea of helicopters being usable in Air modes, I may actually play helis if they were usable there.
…And this still comes down to the fact that ARB is a PvP mode, not PvE. I play the game for PvP, and that should not be interrupted or decided by PvE players. Give them a separate gamemode.
lol, what? SM.92, AD-4, Do335, Me410, and AM-1 are all viable attackers in the A2A role, just to name a few. Not to mention bombers like the SB2C and B7A2.
As for the rest of the “food” attackers, that is a good thing, as they arent supposed to work in PvP A2A combat.
And the way we win in WT? Air superiority. It is the objective.
Not sure about that, nearly everything here is for shafting fighters and making PvE the main focus.
Doesnt have to be the main purpose for it to be good at it.
It isnt stupid. The team with players still alive has now established air superiority!
Making other types of aircraft usable is somehow making ARB into PvE? Can’t tell if you are stupid or trolling.
Never have I said I want markers removed.
This is what you want ARB to be, not what it is. If it were plain PvP there would be no bomb targets, no tickets and no AI of any kind.
How do you not realize that air superiority is still going to help towards winning because strike/bombers get to their objective?
Shafting fighters? By reducing furballs and making more modern weaponry usable? Most people who played the ARH test last dev server said they liked it, not because of ARHs but because player counts were reduced.
PvE is NOT the main focus in our suggestion. While it is the objective that ends the game, it cannot be done without fighters. And if no one in the match wants to bomb great, you just got yourself 45 minutes or whatever of pure PvP.
How do you not see that a large portion of the planes has no place in a gamemode like this?
Wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
I won’t be replying to you two any longer. If you do not see the problems I don’t think anyone can help you.
Attackers and bombers are perfectly usable in Air RB. “Usable” does not inherently mean “decides the match on their own”.
While I do have more time in fighters, I rather enjoy flying bombers, it’s very relaxing.
It’s literally one of the subsections of the opening post.
Simplifying something to an absurd degree is not, in fact, a counterargument.
We’re going in circles. I already explained why objectives exist in PvP settings (to nudge players towards encountering other players). Being a PvP setting does not mean it’s supposed to be objectiveless TDM, it simply means that the objectives serve the purpose of facilitating PvP encounters.
If you’re playing a bomber, your role isn’t “bomb targets”, it’s “bomb targets while trying to not get killed by enemy players”. The former is just a PvE farming game, the latter is proper PvP, as WT is intended to be.
But its not just my preference for there to be a shakeup. Most of the player base wants a shakeup. And frankly, how does giving bombers and attackers a role beyond being food hurt the game.
Why, especially when there’s already a lengthy thread with plenty of answers, would you expect to get a meaningful answer for a loaded, bad-faith question?
Im not claiming to speak for everyone. I’m simply reporting what i see and hear from a lot of players. Its called observation
Why, especially when there’s already a lengthy thread with plenty of answers, would you expect to get a meaningful answer for a loaded, bad-faith question?
Becuase the burden for explaining why air RB should not change to give bombers a role falls on YOU. Beyond farming. Becuase guess what? That already happens. And if we give bombers a role, fighters have a reason to focus on them, and the farming problem resolves itself
